Arc Rise Fantasia

Posted: 08/03/10

After achieving some critical success with Muramasa last year, Ignition turns to the Wii once again with Arc Rise Fantasia. Rather than push the genre forward, it's a throwback to the PS2 days, emulating the style and feel of other popular series. Is there a viable RPG behind the poor localization effort, bland aesthetic, and excessive grinding?

Arc Rise Fantasia chronicles the adventures L'Arc, a young legionnaire of the Meridian Empire, and his struggle to decide what path he wants to carve through life. The tale centers around religion and political turmoil, with the main cast of characters caught in the crossfire and given the means to determine the fate of the world. Initially, you're led to believe one destiny is the best choice for the world, but things are never that simple in these types of games. L'Arc's world is soon turned upside down, leaving him to find a way to reconcile with his former friends and decide what side he truly wishes to fight for before the world falls into ruin.

There are a few genuinely surprising twists and turns, but they're not enough to overcome the poor delivery. The voice work is absolutely horrendous, making it impossible to get emotionally attached to any of the characters. The writing is on par with your average fan fiction; naïve, bland, and sure to evoke some yawns. But even if the production was turned up a few notches, the plot holes are big enough to drive a tank through; you'll slap your head in disbelief more than once before the sun sets on this quest.

Arc Rise Fantasia's structure is best compared to the more recent installments of the Tales series. In fact, it's almost a carbon copy. There's a massive world to explore, divided into open field environments, dungeons, and numerous towns and waypoints. Each serves the same function that we're accustomed to, and there's little deviation from the blueprint. Veterans will be able to jump right in and feel at home, while the opening segments provide enough tutorial elements so newcomers can get a handle on the action.

Rather than burden you with random encounters, you're allowed to trigger fights at your leisure, making it theoretically possible to battle at your own pace. This is completely negated, however, by the constant need to grind in order to advance. At first, you'll need to bolster your power in order to overcome the numerous boss encounters, though once the regular enemies shoot up in power later in the game, you'll need to grind simply to survive. It needlessly drags out the length of the game at points, and it's just incredibly boring.

Part of the problem is that brute force is the solution to everything, despite the inclusion of an intricate weapon and magic system. As you progress through the game, you obtain new weapons and magic orbs which can be upgraded and enhanced after much toil. But building up these elements consumes a lot of time and effort, and it's hard to figure out what's useful and what's not. No matter how you cut it, you're going to spend a lot of time battling remedial enemies just to make any headway.

It's not all drudgery, though. There's a guild system that allows you to undertake tons of side quests that score you sweet loot, and there are plenty of secrets and treasures hidden throughout the world. The light puzzle elements in the dungeons keep things from getting totally monotonous, and the bosses provide a worthy challenge that will test your limits.

Though Arc Rise Fantasia's battle system borrows heavily from some familiar sources, at least the designers were smart about what they pilfered. The experience is strictly turn-based, though you can reposition your characters during any given turn. You also have the option to play out fights manually or select from various pre-set battle plans, allowing the AI to handle the action. Typically, there are up to three characters in your party, though occasionally an extra guest will join in.

Between all members of your party, you have a finite number of action points to use during any turn. Almost every action costs a set amount of points, and you're free to use them all up, or to save some for a successive turn. The one catch is that the meter is linked to your party count; if any members fall in battle, the meter will drop unless they're revived. This isn't too problematic because the ability point costs scale down to compensate, which gives you a decent chance at a comeback.

Aside from your AP, you have an SP meter that builds during battle. If you bank enough, you can execute character-specific special attacks called excels, and you eventually gain the ability to chain three of them together to trigger destructive unison attacks. Characters can also link up melee and magical attacks to deliver punishing combos, though there's a trade-off: doing so puts you in close proximity to enemies, making you susceptible to area of effect attacks. There's also a system which lets L'Ark summon giant beasts to his aid. Gaining control of the first few happens as you play through the story, but securing later ones is dependant on your skill and performance.

Blurry models and heavily compressed images and videos are just a few of the issues with Arc Rise Fantasia's visuals. Character and enemy designs are blatant rip-offs, and the overall look can be summed up as generic. But it pales in comparison to the woeful voicework, which is some of the worst we've ever heard in a video game. Granted, you can turn the voices off and opt for subtitles, but then part of the screen is cut off during cinematic sequences with an annoying black bar. The soundtrack has some standout tunes, but it's not enough to compensate.

There's certainly some ambition behind Arc Rise Fantasia, but the game doesn't come close to approaching its potential. The intricate combat mechanics and exciting battle system can't make up for the poor production values, not to mention the sheer amount of repetitive grinding the game demands. There are plenty of RPGs out there that do what it does better.

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